A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood!

Published by Bernice Huinink-Buiter on Thu, May 21, 2020 2:45 PM

GLO - Global Local Outreach

It’s A BEAUTIFUL DAY in the NEIGHBOURHOOD!

Warm sunshine, pots of vibrant flowers and an empty church parking lot on a Saturday morning, brought together members of Covenant CRC and of the Lansdowne Ave community to create ...A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD!

Due to the global coronavirus outbreak, the Covenant church family has not worshiped together in person at 410 Lansdowne for over 2 months now, and we all miss being together. None of our weekly activities have been happening. The Global Local Outreach (GLO) Team, along with the Covenant COVID-19 Response Team, felt that we needed to plan an event to reach out to our neighbours letting them know we miss them and care about them. We wanted to shine God’s light over them all! In prayer we gave this to our faithful God asking Him to guide us.

On Saturday morning, May 16, a flower stand was set up in the parking lot at Covenant Church . 60 colourful potted mums, each with an encouraging card that had a hopeful scripture verse on one side and the church’s address and website on the back, were given to the neighbours who stopped by. Each recipient that stopped by was given two pots of flowers and asked to keep one for themselves and give the second one to another neighbour to brighten their day. We also brought a pot of flowers to members of Covenant CRC that live in the church’s neighbourhood.

What a beautiful outpouring of community followed!! Everyone was so thankful for the gift, eager to give the extra plant to another one of their neighbours….someone celebrating a birthday or anniversary, someone grieving, someone who is a frontline worker, someone exhausted from working from home, while teaching their children and managing family life, someone who just needed a lift! They were eager to share stories- their joys and anxieties.

Many wanted to pay for the flowers and we encouraged them to donate the money to their favourite local charity, which in turn spiked conversations about all the amazing things local charities are doing for our community and beyond.

The members of Covenant who live in the neighbourhood joined us, taking more flowers home to bless their next door neighbours!

Our neighbours told us they miss seeing us come to church on Sunday and to our weekly activities, letting us know an empty church is not a good thing. I received an email later that afternoon from one person to whom we delivered a flower, and he let us know that we ‘made his day’!

Thanks be to God who allowed us to be His Hands and Feet for an hour on a Saturday morning!